The Roof, Saturday Morning

[wwiii]

Everybody had their grumpy days. Or their uncomfortable days, or their just plain wrong-side-of-the-bed days. And for any reason under the sun, really. It all depended on what was up.

What was up for Warren was spring, headed into summer. Which meant fewer layers or even just the option of lounging around shirtless, a heightened likelihood of seeing pretty girls wearing less than they were a few months ago, and, less pleasantly, a molt.

Large feathered wings were amazing, breathtaking, and absolutely liberating right up until you realized that having a pair of them meant that you'd have to deal with itching, feather dust, and pinfeathers on a seasonal basis. And so Warren had made his way up to the roof in an effort to at least minimize some of the mess in his room to spare Hinata the headache, and was now sitting on the edge, frowning at a molted four-foot long primary feather and trying to figure out what the heck to do with it as he turned it over in his hand.

This sort of thing was so much easier to deal with when his dad could just smuggle it all out through his company as 'medical waste.'

[I don't know. All I know is that I've been vacuuming up cockatiel dust for weeks now, and finally he's starting to drop real feathers so it's time to torment Warren thus. But the roof is open!]

Comments

[therewaslife]

"I don't really know how she decided that," Bod said, looking down at his shoulders himself, "but it's nice to know there's something good at me, I suppose. I don't know if I'd be coming out of my room anymore if she'd called me girly."

[wwiii]

"It'd probably get pretty boring in there," Warren decided. "Cooped up inside all of the time. I have no idea how I used to do it."

It probably helped that he didn't trust himself to fly, at the time.

"I think, if she did call you girly, your best bet would just be to do something about it. Start working out, or something like that. They have weights at the gym, right?"

[therewaslife]

"I think so. I've only been down there once and I spent most of my time having a conversation with someone rather than actually utilizing the area for what it's for."

Well, now he was wondering if he did look girly. Hm.

"Do you use the gym?"

[wwiii]

"I've never been," confessed Warren. "I should probably check it out sometime, I guess. Even though I don't think I'm very likely to ever find myself too out of shape."

One of the added benefits of being built like a bird, apparently.

Still...

"You don't think I need to, do you?"

[therewaslife]

Oh no, now they were both going to be self conscious at each other. Ah, the perils of being a somewhat insecure teenage boy.

"No! No, not at all," said Bod, shaking his head. "I mean, I've heard exercise is good for you so I don't think it would go amiss but I don't think you need it."

Bod paused.

"Do you think I need to?"

[wwiii]

"Why would I think that? You've already had girls tell you that you've got nice shoulders! And they're probably a much better judge of that sort of thing than I am, Bod."

Really. Warren's experience with nice shoulders pretty much started and ended with a view in the mirror.

[therewaslife]

"Well, you asked me," Bod pointed out, snickering. "So, I thought perhaps I should ask you too. Perhaps you'd see something they didn't."

[wwiii]

"I see shoulders," Warren admitted, relenting a little and shaking his head with a chuckle. "Which is about where my expertise begins and ends, unfortunately. But, for what it's worth, they're not girly."

See, that was totally reassuring! Right?

[therewaslife]

"I don't think your shoulders are girly either," Bod assured Warren, giving each shoulder a look. "And you do have wings which is something I definitely don't have. I don't think they're girly either."

[wwiii]

"Particularly not right now, since I look like I flew headfirst into a window," Warren joked. "I never really thought of wings as girly or not. I mean, they're just kinda... wings."

They flapped, you flew.

[therewaslife]

"Well, they're unusual," Bod clarified, nodding. "And, from what I've found, people do seem to be drawn to unusual things. It's the air of mystery, I think."

[wwiii]

"Mystery," Warren decided, "is a good word for it. Maybe not the same word that I would have come up with, but pretty much hands-down a better one."

The word that Warren would have come up with possibly alluded to charging admission to stand around and stare with a bucket of overpriced popcorn in hand, to a soundscape of elephants and circus music.

"I think maybe they just like being around things that they won't ever have to deal with. Like how you hear some people talk about how they like children, so long as they can send them back to the parents the moment they stop being fun."

[therewaslife]

"I hadn't ever heard that before," he said but the sentiment made him laugh nonetheless. "Did you have children arrive during that one strange weekend? I didn't but I saw several people who, I think, would fit that statement."

[wwiii]

"I lucked out, really. Bobby ended up with a small army of them, and I didn't get any at all. So I got to play Uncle Warren and then send them back to their dad when I was done taking them for flights around the island."

Which, by the way, had been kind of stupidly fun. And almost made him sorry that he didn't end up with kids of his own, too.

Almost.

[therewaslife]

"I didn't end up with any either," he said and grinned. "Jacob was out of town when it happened so I didn't get to play uncle. I met Kate's kids when I was passing by her room. I don't know if they really liked me."

[wwiii]

"If they didn't kick you in the shins or start crying, I think you were probably in the clear," Warren decided. "Kids are pretty straightforward that way."

...

"I think."

[therewaslife]

"One of them said I talked weird," Bod shared. "Does that count, do you think?"

[wwiii]

"Talked... weird?" Warren was going to need a moment to run that through his little-kid-to-English mental translator. "Maybe they figured you had a strange accent, or something? I mean, it's not weird, but it isn't like children have the largest vocabulary to draw from in the first place either, right?"

[therewaslife]

"Well, the particular child who told me probably hasn't had much exposure to British accents so it was weird to him," Bod said, smiling briefly. "Unfortunately, I talked weird and wasn't a knight so I was at a disadvantage."

[wwiii]

"You mean you've never ridden a gallant horse and put on shining armor before? Bod, I'm disappointed in you. It's almost law that all British people have to be knights, you know. Or else kings."

Warren was absolutely kidding, yes.

"All of them."

[therewaslife]

"Does that mean I don't get to call myself British now?" Bod wondered, managing to pick up on the joke but playing along. "I don't know what nationality I'll take on now!"

[wwiii]

"You could always decide to be Canadian," Warren mused. "They're kind of weird up there, and they used to belong to Britain anyhow, didn't they? Just walk on up there, give a threatening look to a beaver, and then announce that you're there to claim back the land in the name of the Commonwealth, or something. They'd be too polite to tell you that you're full of crap."

[therewaslife]

"Before I consider that, how did you think of that so quickly?" Bod had to ask, laughing quietly.

[wwiii]

"I would be lying if I said I never thought of running away to Canada," Warren laughed, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest. "Either there, or, I don't know..." He waved a hand vaguely in the air, looking for another place name off the top of his head. "Timbuktu. But I'd probably do better in Canada, considering I actually know that much about it."

It helped that Canada was so much closer to New York than Timbuktu was.

[therewaslife]

"I don't know, I think either you or I might stick out in any place for various different reasons," Bod replied, smiling a bit. "That's not always a bad thing...until it is."